Anonymity,
neutrality and
discretion are still
among the
characteristics of
the
Mosset œuvre.
But are we then to
fall into the trap
(the painting as
trapdoor?) of
making this formal
reservation the key
to his painting?
What if it is,
primarily, a tribute
paid to the
zeitgeist?
A sign indicating
the point where the
extreme politeness
his personal ethos is
founded upon meets
the collective myths
of the “man without
qualities,” the work
without subject, or,
in the American
version, pure
objecthood.
The book is part of the
New York series, created conjunctively by Les presses du réel and the French Cultural Services in New York to publish theoretical texts in English not only on contemporary art but also on
dance, and on emerging American
performance that is more in line with
French thinking. The series is inspired by a simple assumption: that contemporary culture is a public good that offers perspective on the questions of our time. Today, contemporary art is increasingly merchandised and yet undervalued in its capacity to give new perspective on the globalized world in which we live. Keeping up with international debates, this series attempts to support that budding perspective.
Olivier Mosset (born 1944 in Berne, lives and works in Tucson) worked
in Paris from 1965 to 1977, participated in the creation
of the group
BMTP and then went to live
in New York. He did numerous exhibitions with
the Radical American Painters in the 1980s.
Mosset
describes himself as a painter
rather than an artist. His work is based
on a principle of neutrality, radicality and
self-effacement that constantly challenge
the limits of painting. His
approach involves continually going back to previous explorations and diversifying them, taking
care to integrate into his conceptions the conditions in which they appeared, to modify his work
in line with the current cultural context, thus questioning
painting in its initial materiality.
Catherine Perret (born 1956 in Paris) is associate professor of modern and contemporary aesthetics and theory at Nanterre University (Paris X). She was the director of the Art of Exhibition Department at Paris X. She served as a program director at the Collège International de Philosophie from 1995 to 2001. She is currently responsible for the Centre de recherche sur l'art, philosophie, esthétique (CRéART - PHI) at Paris X.
